The Interview: RoadChef's Simon Turl

Love for RoadChef's boss is the open road, his Harley-Davidson with his wife on the back, and a tour of the M5 service area...

Life in the exit lane: Simon Turl says he can't go past a motorway service station without stopping to check it out

It sounds like the journey from hell - going into one service station after another. Yet after almost two years as chief executive of RoadChef, the UK's third-biggest motorway services chain, Simon Turl still finds it impossible to drive on by.

'My motorway journeys take longer than anyone's,' he confesses over a coffee in Strensham services on the M5 motorway (southbound) in Worcestershire.

'Whether it's one of ours or one of our competitors, I absolutely have to go in and check it out. I've often visited eight or nine on one journey when on holiday with our two sons. My wife Jenny is very understanding.'

After 25 years of marriage and with service areas an average of just 28 miles apart on motorways, she would have to be. But Jenny, 45, can hardly argue that she didn't know what she was getting into.

Turl, 48, has spent virtually his entire life in the industry, starting off at the age of 17 as a petrol pump attendant at a Granada service station in Trowell, Nottinghamshire.

He moved up the career ladder to commercial director on the board of Granada, before spending three years as managing director of Travelodge, then the group's cut-price hotels business.

He left for a year to head People 1st, the training and skills council for the hospitality industry, before joining RoadChef in November 2007 as chief executive.

RoadChef may be smaller than rivals Moto and Welcome Break, but that does not mean the numbers are not impressive. It has 60m customer visits a year, serves a million breakfasts, 500,000 portions of fish and chips and 5m coffees. Its catering operation alone turns over £60m a year.

But still about 40% of visitors spend only a proverbial penny - and therein lies the problem and the reason why we are sitting in Strensham services, subject of a recent £1.6m facelift.

Rather than the airless bunkers of yesterday, Strensham is a clean, light-filled space with landscaped seating outside and a range of High Street names such as Costa Coffee, WH Smith, Pizza Hut and McDonald's inside, complete with comfy sofas and free wireless internet. More than 75% of visitors to Strensham now buy something.

Turl says it is not a case of just knocking a building down and putting up a nicer one with more windows. 'That wouldn't change the spend at all,' he says. 'It's what you offer inside that counts,' which is why RoadChef has installed brands of its own such as the Hot Food Company alongside the bigger names.

'We all remember traditional service stations with the "free flow servery",' says Turl, referring to the soul-destroying system of old when you queued at counters serving tepid food before joining yet another queue to pay.

'Now the food is piping hot, plated up when you order it and ready to eat straightaway.' I ask a neighbouring couple - Mr and Mrs Marks from Nottingham - who are tucking into a full English breakfast what they think. 'It's rubbish,' comes the blunt answer.

'It's cold and our black tea has milk in it.' Turl springs into action and has fixed up a full refund and words of apology within seconds. The pair are slightly mollified. 'We come here quite often and it's usually much better,' Mrs Marks concedes.

'And it is light and clean in here, much better than service stations used to be.' Turl argues that people never used to spend money because service stations did not offer the products they wanted, or the prices were too high.

'We set about trying to address those concerns. A hell of a lot of money has recently been invested into making service stations better,' says Turl, adding that the company has to be run on commercial lines while having obligations under licensing agreements.

'We have to be open 24 hours a day and offer free parking - it's certainly not a quick way to make money.' Catering generates the best returns, with RoadChef operating all the retail and food concessions itself as well as the onsite Premier Inn hotels.

Other revenue sources, such as the £1.99 charge on each cash machine withdrawal, are more controversial.

But Turl hopes to cut energy costs by installing wind turbines and is considering tie-ups with supermarket chains following the appearance of M&S and Waitrose on the motorway network.

With £200m of debt on turnover of £280m and profits of £20m, cost savings are a priority. It will take five years from increased sales to pay back the refurbishment costs of Strensham so it is a long-term investment for RoadChef's owner, Israeli property company Delek Real Estate, which also owns the NCP car parks chain.

While Turl can enhance the RoadChef offering, there are some things he cannot do. Motorway service areas cannot be an attraction in their own right, for example, or sell alcohol. They were only recently allowed to mention on motorway signs what they actually offered, hence new company names such as RoadChef Costa Coffee. But Turl believes the name changes increased sales by 20%.

Motorway traffic is increasing by about three per cent a year, with this year's 'staycation' effect boosting numbers on routes to UK destinations to offset fewer travellers on the way to France.

But with cars being more comfortable and needing less fuel, Turl is fighting a difficult battle to get people to stop for a coffee. Clocking up 45,000 miles a year - much of it with his wife on his Harley-Davidson Fat Boy - Turl might just be his own dream customer.